We look forward to seeing each other at our upcoming meeting, Wednesday, Sept. 10th in the Primary Library at the German European School (GESS), 300 Jalan Jurong Kechil, Singapore, 598668 — 4:00 pm for a 4:30 pm start. An agenda will be forthcoming, via the Google Group.
Ranita Smart, our host, says while parking is available, no one is allowed to drive into the campus between 4:00-4:20 pm, as the school buses leave at that time — so plan to arrive before or after that 20-minute window, if you are driving.
There should be several new faces in the crowd. Not only do we have a few new schools (e.g., GEMS World Academy and Dulwich College), but also the replacements of our former colleagues, e.g., at the Canadian school (Lisa and Isabel), the German school (Ruth), Eton House (Carla), OFS (Jeroen), UWCSEA East (Debbie), SAS (John Johnson), etc.
NB: New school librarians in Singapore: you as an individual are free to attend our general meetings. Just come along. The benefits of having your school join as a paying member are outlined here — and relate to professional development opportunities that we provide. We do recommend you join our Google Group in order to receive email updates re meetings and blog updates. The only requirement is that you sign up with a valid Google Account email.
Re Red Dots: New people should read the write-up I did of the history and evolution of the Red Dot Book Awards (here). All schools are encouraged to participate every year. And all ISLN members are welcome to be on the committee which sets the 8 titles for each of the 4 categories of readers. Read the May blog post on the longlists here.
I notice that only 3 of us have signed up to be on the Red Dot committee so far. Link to Google Doc here. I’m going to consider this document open for the next week — and then we will try to settle subcommittee meeting times for Early/Young Readers and Older/Mature Readers before the Sept. 10th meeting. We have to get going on it.
The goal is to announce the sets of Red Dot titles by the end of September — and it’s always a stretch, time-wise. October is a no-go month for our network — because of differing holiday schedules — so sometimes we don’t manage it until the end of October. Yet we know schools need to be ordering the books — as the voting takes place in early March.
The Readers Cup competition (which is based on a subset of the Red Dot titles) takes place in late May. We will be asking for a new committee to organize this at the Sept. 10th general meeting. After last year’s event, there were several discussions about how to improve it — both in content and organization. I feel if we are going to introduce changes, people need to know by our November meeting. So if you are interested in the organization of the Readers Cup, be prepared to raise your hand in September!
Looking forward to seeing you all on Sept. 10th — and to seeing my Red Dot Committee spreadsheet fill up a bit.
